MSNBC chief apologizes to Priebus

MSNBC President Phil Griffin apologized to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Thursday for a tweet suggesting conservatives “hate” interracial marriages and “dismissed” the staffer who authored it.

“The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet,” Griffin wrote in a statement.

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“I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended,” he continued. “At msnbc we believe in passionate, strong debate about the issues and we invite voices from all sides to participate. That will never change.”

Earlier on Thursday, Priebus sent a letter to Griffin announcing that he would ban all staff members and surrogates from appearing on the liberal news network until Griffin personally and publicly apologized. Priebus also said he had “asked Republican surrogates and officials to follow our lead.”

Following Griffin’s apology, RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer sent a memo to staff informing them that the chairman had accepted Griffin’s apology.

“We appreciate Mr. Griffin’s admission that their comment was demeaning and disgusting, and the Chairman accepted his apology. We will aggressively monitor the network to see whether their pattern of unacceptable behavior actually changes,” Spicer wrote. “We don’t expect their liberal bias to change, but we will call them out when political commentary devolves into personal and belittling attacks.”

In an email to POLITICO, Spicer confirmed that the boycott of MSNBC had been lifted. “That was the deal. Apology and corrective action,” he wrote.

The tweet, which MSNBC posted on Wednesday night, directed readers to an MSNBC article about a Cheerios Super Bowl ad that features a biracial family.

“Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family,” the tweet read. An early version of the article also referenced a possible “outcry from the right” in response to the ad, though that was later taken out.

Shortly before 11 p.m. Eastern time, MSNBC apologized for the tweet, which it called “offensive,” and announced that it would be deleting it.

“Earlier, this account tweeted an offensive line about the new Cheerios ad. We deeply regret it. It does not reflect the position of msnbc,” the network wrote on Twitter. “We are deleting the earlier offensive tweet. It does not reflect msnbc’s position and we apologize.”

MSNBC.com executive editor Richard Wolffe also issued an apology on his own Twitter account, calling the tweet “dumb,” “offensive” and “not who we are at msnbc.”

Priebus and other RNC staff and surrogates appear frequently on MSNBC, especially on “Morning Joe” and “The Daily Rundown,” which are more devoted to agenda-setting political news than to partisan ideology. Priebus appeared on “Morning Joe” on Wednesday.

In his letter to Griffin, Priebus wrote that “such petty and demeaning attacks have become a pattern” at the network.

“With increasing frequency many of your hosts have personally denigrated and demeaned Americans — especially conservative and Republican Americans — without even attempting to further meaningful political dialogue,” he wrote. “While I personally enjoy appearing on decent shows like ‘Morning Joe’ and ‘Daily Rundown,’ the entire network is poisoned because of this pattern of behavior.”

In a separate statement, Priebus identified specific former and current MSNBC hosts who he said “have had a troubling streak in the last several weeks of making comments that belittle and demean Americans without furthering any thoughtful dialogue.” That list included Alec Baldwin, Martin Bashir, Melissa Harris-Perry, Alex Wagner and Ronan Farrow.

Baldwin, who hosted a short-lived Friday night interview show, was suspended and then left after he directed an anti-gay slur toward a photographer in New York. Bashir, who host the network’s 4 p.m. hour, left after making on-air remarks in which he suggested that Sarah Palin should be forced to endure slavery-like conditions, including the forced consumption of feces.

Harris-Perry, Wagner and Farrow have also come in for criticism in recent weeks. In a segment on her weekend show, for which she later apologized, Harris-Perry and her panel made fun of Mitt Romney for having a black adopted grandchild. Wagner, who now hosts in Bashir’s 4 p.m. time slot, drew criticism from the right after she wrote what one Fox News contributor described as a “blatantly sexist” tweet about Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Farrow, who joined the network last year and will launch his show late next month, was accused by several conservatives of mocking a wounded soldier during the State of the Union address when he tweeted, “Cory ‘struggles on the left side.’ Congress relates.” (Army Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsbur, who attended the State of the Union, sustained injuries while fighting in Afghanistan and, as President Barack Obama put it, “still struggles from his left side.”)

The string of controversies at MSNBC have started to create a branding problem for the network, which markets itself as a home for smart progressives and often beats up on conservatives for being stuck in the past on social issues.

Still, some conservatives took issue with Priebus’s decision to engage in a high-profile boycott against the network.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, former Republican congressman Joe Walsh criticized Priebus’s boycott as a misguided fundraising effort: “Instead of a boycott, why not show up on a program and air your grievances? Oh, because let’s fundraise off this, right?” he wrote.

Walsh also seemed to accuse the RNC of having a double standard, given its past complaints about left-wing groups who target conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh for their inflammatory remarks.

“We complain when someone is fired for saying whatever. We get upset whenever the left attacks their advertisers. Then you want to do the same?” he wrote. “You just harm future discourse and conversation when you encourage outrage-du jour to morph into a boycott of advertisers.”